Glad you're back! You bring up an interesting point, one that
I have been "pondering" and praying about a lot recently and I was wondering if
I could get some input from the group on this.

You made the statement "eating meat is a natural thing for
many creatures and is not wrong".

Most people I know use Genesis 9:3 to justify eating animals.
I know this does not justify the cruelty involved but I still have such a HARD
time believing that God gave us permission to eat meat as a GOOD thing,
something we can do "guilt-free", something that is "good" for us. I just don't
believe it is that simple.

If eating meat was a "gift" he gave us (as I've heard
stated by Christians), why would it be so unhealthy for us, why would our bodies
be so ill-suited to digest it, and why would death have to be involved?

Was
God's permission to eat meat simply the way that animals would suffer from the
introduction of sin into the world? Is it really something we should be able to
do and enjoy even if the animal has been raised humanely and killed "humanely"
(such a contradiction of terms!!)?

I used to buy my meat (before I stopped
eating it!!) at a rural packing house where locally farmed animals were
slaughtered and processed. Even though they were raised well and this was not a
huge commercial slaughterhouse, I still felt the oppression and fear and dread
and "blackness" of the place when I was there surrounded by all the dead
carcasses.

Even if an animal has its throat slit right there on the beautiful
farm it was raised on where it was able to run and be free and languish in the
sun, it's death, I'm sure, is still terrifying,
hideous and awful. I cannot "wrap
my brain" around the idea that this is something we have been given permission
to feel comfortable doing or that it's just one of those uncomfortable
necessities of life (which is another comment I hear a lot).

Does the Bible give us any indication that eating "humanely
raised" animals is ok??